THE SEED
Written By Kate Mulvany
ROSE
There was a spray that Dad breathed in and now I don’t have the eggs. They’ve all been destroyed by radiotherapy and even if they found one, I can’t carry it. The tumour wiped out half my organs, my body can’t support a baby. Grandda, I’m thirty and I’ve just started menopause. I will never have children. [Beat] I will never have children. [Beat] I will never have children. And you know what? I don’t think I deserve them anyway. When a friend tells me she is pregnant I smile and hug and kiss and ask her dumb questions. ‘How far along?’ ‘Any names picked yet?’ ‘What are you craving?’ But I don’t let on what I’m craving. That despite my big smile and congratulations I’m green and I’m bubbling and I’m thinking, you bitch, I hope it fucking dies inside you, you bitch. And when a pregnant woman walks past me on the street I want punch her belly and walk away when she falls to the ground and just leave her there to deal with it. And when a husband tells me he’s having his third boy I want to put my hand down his pants and rip his fucking cock off and squeeze it dry of any seed. And when I see a baby in a pram…[Beat] I just want to pick it up and smell its skin and hold it to my heart and stoke its little head and never let another person touch it for the rest of its life. Is that normal, Grandda? I don’t know. And I never will. Because the seed stops here.